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spain

I love you under the rain and under the clouds and after midnight on Tuesday nights. I love you at lunchtime and on Sunday mornings before the hung-over crawl out from under their bed-sheets. I love you even and sometimes especially when I don’t, forgiving you your excessive escalators and stale Saturday winds.

I ignored you when we met. Skinny from silliness and afraid of everything, you were too wild for me, full of chatter. Five years later I hauled my suitcase up the stairs in Tirso de Molina. There was a light rain falling. Men were shouting and selling: paragua, paragua, paragua! I was lost but didn’t care. I would remember this moment for many months, especially while listening to shitty guided meditations. We stayed in a one room studio in Arganzuela. For three nights a madwoman banged trashcans and howled “Arabian Nights” beneath the window.

In August you were deserted. Queens with pencil-thin eyebrows smoked in doorways and danced chotis and I couldn’t stop smiling. The metro back was empty but for one sleeping woman. I looked up at the ceiling in my airport hotel and wondered what was wrong with me.

In September I had a bed and nowhere to rest my head. Waking up to you made me happier than I’d been for a long time. Sure I was lonely but I was also awake. Friends and strangers came and went. Gran Vía was a trap. I stumbled through January. Some nights the windows shook.

Last March, J asked what was wrong with me: why did I have to walk so far if the metro was right in front of us? It must have been one of those early Spring days, still cold enough for a coat, everybody falling in love. It took me seventy-five minutes to get home and I listened to Nino Bravo most of the way. Here he is, singing his way down the Paseo del Prado:

And there I was, trying real hard not to spread my arms out and sing right along with him. Maybe I should have. I’m here now only because I decided to honor impulse, after all. One year later and many are the afternoons that I still feel like singing up and down your hills.

It has been four months since I last wore a proper pair of house shoes.

I’m beginning to the think that the Universe (or God or Judi Dench or Whoever You Believe In) is hellbent on making this year one in which I will be continuously forced to reflect on and appreciate what I have (prima donna alert: the story I’m about to tell ain’t that big a deal).

On Thursday afternoon Palacio Longoria, modernist gem (or eyesore, depending on your aesthetic preferences),was open to the public as part of Open House Madrid. I saw Palacio Longoria for the first time on Constitution Day 2016. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and wondered what the balls is that building doing on this street and how do I get inside? Turns out it’s only open a select few days a year without a reservation–Thursday, of course, was one of those days.I really wanted to go but I had things to get done first. I had to clean, prepare a class, feed my body, and put on some socially acceptable clothing. In my effort to do all of those things at the same time I ended up jamming my left foot, full force, into my bedroom door. I hobbled onto my bed at that point and exclaimed some things to la virgen santa and to la madre que me parío. I could hear Dolores and Rosa María, superstar Spanish mothers of my past, berating me: ibas sin zapatiiiiillas, nena?

For those of you who haven’t lived in Spain or any place where this is A Thing, be aware that the quickest way to scandalize a Spaniard is to walk barefoot around your home. Naked feet will take you only as far as the closest hospital. Whether its thanks to a very complicated case of pneumonia or a tragically mangled foot, ending up there is simply a question of time.

So, yes, I broke a toe. Or I sprained it. I don’t know. The impact was barbaric enough and the poor bae now bruised enough that I can’t walk without limping. The men of Lavapies shout after me “que te pasa, mujer?”I’m tempted to shout back in my raspiest Murcian Spanish: “no me pasa na’,” the a all drawn out and dramatic, an annoyed hand flourished in the air, little D and A nowhere to be found (too busy having cañas I guess). I say nothing, though, on account of the fact that I’d be hopeless at running away.

There’s a lesson somewhere in here about slowing down and giving yourself time to heal. I’ll never take another toe for granted.

There is a place that I will always call home. It’s where my family lives and where the friendships I have are ones that have survived such insurmountable things as adolescence, separation, depression, and my Phantom of the Opera phase. The sheer amount of life we have experienced both together and apart is impossible to re-create. Still, I leave those people year after year after year to come to Spain. Sometimes I know why I do this. Other times, especially in the days and weeks after I return, I don’t.

You will likely feel a lot of things when you move and you will feel these things in part because you are too romantic for reality and because you are impatient, but mostly because that’s how humans react to change (unless you’re one of those cool nomads who just needs a couple of succulents to feel at home, I guess).

First, you might feel disappointed. I envisioned myself returning to my Spanish apartment and waltzing around in slippers and lingerie with a martini in hand, transitioning easily back into a glamorous life that I’ve never actually had. Let the record show that the only martini I’ve ever consumed is the Italian-brand vermouth. Let the record also show that my evenings have never looked like (I imagine) Rihanna’s do. Here’s what really happened: As I scrubbed my kitchen counters in a t-shirt and dusty jeans two sizes too big for me, my neighbor came to the window and asked if I was the cleaning lady and, if so, what was my rate? I, broker than I’ve been in many years, thought about saying yes.

Another thing you may also feel is loneliness. In spite of how you feel about this sort of self-help, you’ll watch a Ted Talk called “The Simple Cure for Loneliness.” Baya Voce, the speaker, will say that the secret is to create rituals like putting on leggings and poppin’ open a bottle of rosé with your best friends! or taking a trip to Paris with your girlies! This video, although you’re sure that Baya is a lovely person, will nevertheless make you feel like eating all of your leggings and then your own hands.

You will probably feel both hopeful and hopeless, sometimes in the span of five minutes. Maybe you should chill the eff out, read this article, binge watch Cardi B’s Instagram rants, and then go on a run or pretend your empty living room is actually just a home dance studio.

En fin, I don’t always know why I do what I do, but I keep doing it. When I’m not busy questioning all of my life decisions, I try to laugh.

I spent my last full week in Madrid wearing yoga pants and singing Santana’s “María María” as I cared for a teenager of the same name. I was having a blast but feeling pretty suburban so to welcome the weekend I wore an outfit that made me feel like a prostitute on her way to a high-school orchestra concert. It’s difficult to say whether wearing a push-up bra makes me feel sexy or if it’s just that I enjoy the feeling I get from tricking weird men into whooping at what are really just two well-sculpted pillows. Jose María, the doorman, had rung me before I went out to tell me he had a package waiting for me and that I’d better come get it since it was his last day.

Now, I’m five foot ten or eleven in heels and Jose María is five foot on a good day. He ushered me into his office where I explained that the package contained a tablecloth made by my great-grandmother. The top of his head ended right at my big fake cleavage and I tried really hard not to laugh as he told me about his retirement plans. I wished that someone were painting us. They could title it:

I’ve done a lot of market research on lifestyle blogs/listicles and I’ve noticed that a lot of people seek help when it comes to putting their things in bags and then traveling with them, so I thought I’d share my own method. I’ve been packing this way for years and its always worked for me.

Take your suitcase out of the closet. Open it.

Walk away from the suitcase.

Put a wig on.

Take a casual selfie:

Think: I am lookin’ like a drowned, harassed rat (then wonder who wrote that line in “Let’s Have a Kiki” and envy them).

Start playing one or two songs on repeat. This year I’m listening to Rihanna’s “Love on The Brain” and “Higher.” The best lines are “What do I gotta do to get in yo’ mothafuckin’ heart?” and “I just really need your ass with me,” respectively.

Receive a message from a friend with a link to Tina Turner’s 1982 performance of “Proud Mary” and then spend between ten and thirty minutes freaking out about how amazing Tina Turner and her legs are.

Clean out the pockets of your winter coats and wonder why it is always in the pockets of said coats that the most bittersweet of memories live.

Read your old journals and feel mildly embarrassed. Destroy between twelve and fifteen pages after you deem them too dramatic and/or dirty for public consumption in the event that you suffer an untimely death and someone has to go through your things.

Take the wig off and feel a little bit sad about it.

Have a brief panic attack when you think you’re a year older than you actually are.

Have lunch.

Have a coffee.

Have a tiny mental breakdown as you compare your life today to your life at this same moment last year. Entertain the possibility that you are making all of the wrong decisions, all of the time. Realize that you feel this same way when you compare your life two weeks ago to your life today and resolve to be more carpe diem because, seriously, who cares?

Think for a good bit about the absurdity of being afraid.

Repeat Step # 4.

Start folding and stacking clothing. Find a slim journal among a pile of t-shirts, start reading it, and begin to suspect that your past self planted emotional bombs all over your room in some kind of sick plan to thwart your departure.

Start taking your books off the shelf, smelling the pages, and remembering where and why you read each of them.

Wish someone would bring you a snack and a proper iced coffee.

Throw all of your clothing on top of your suitcase, reasoning that, while this does not qualify as packing, at least it has gotten closer to its final destination.

Repeat Step # 6.

Make and eat dinner.

Call your sister to inquire about how many formal dresses you’ve left in the closet at home. Although you have no plans to attend any black tie events during your visit, this feels urgent. Chat for an hour with multiple family members about eyebrows, taxes, and “Ice Cream Jerks.”

Write a stupid list about everything you just did and promise yourself that you’ll make more progress tomorrow (cuz you’re responsible as eff and started this three days early).